Wittlich

Coat of arms

Wittlich

Location of Wittlich within Bernkastel-Wittlich district

Coordinates: 49°59′13″N 06°53′23″E / 49.98694°N 6.88972°ECoordinates: 49°59′13″N 06°53′23″E / 49.98694°N 6.88972°E

Country

Government

• Mayor

Joachim Rodenkirch (2009-) (CDU)

Area

• Total

49.64 km² (19.17 sq mi)

Population (2015-12-31)

• Total

18,762

• Density

380/km² (980/sq mi)

CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)

54516

06571

WIL

Website

www.wittlich.de

The town of Wittlich is the seat of the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and thereby the middle centre for a feeder area of 56 municipalities in the Eifel and Moselle area with its population of roughly 64,000. With some 18,000 inhabitants, Wittlich is the biggest town between Trier and Koblenz and the fourth biggest between Mainz and the Belgian border.

The town lies in the South Eifel on the river Lieser in a side valley of the Moselle on the northern edge of the Wittlich Depression. This stretch of country is bounded in the west by the Moselle Eifel and in the east by the Moselle valley.

Wittlich’s Stadtteile or Ortsbezirke (districts or suburbs), besides the main centre, also called Wittlich, are Bombogen, Dorf, Lüxem, Neuerburg, and Wengerohr, each of which was a self-administering municipality. until 7 June 1969.

The oldest known remnants of human settlement activity come from the third millennium BC.

In Roman times there stood right on the river Lieser, where the Autobahn bridge is now, a stately villa rustica.

In 1065, Wittlich had its first documentary mention. In 1300, Archbishop-Elector Diether von Nassau of Trier granted Wittlich town rights. It had long been assumed, however, that Wittlich had already been granted town rights in 1291, leading to the 700th-anniversary celebrations in 1991.

In 1912, Germany’s first youth prison was built in Wittlich, which also still borders on the Justizvollzugsanstalt Wittlich (“Wittlich Correctional Facility”).

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Wikipedia